Originally Posted by 2MuchMark

ooOOoooo... cool question!

Here's what I think:

Rare Earth? No. There are millions of possibilities out there.

Gaian Bottleneck: Possible. Maybe they live long enough to die thanks to technology and war.

The Great Filter: No. To assume all other possible worlds keep getting wiped out by ELE's is a little too unlikely in my opinion.

The Great Silence: No. Our own radio waves are broadcast to each other and not out to space, yet they can still be heard. It stands to reason that if they were doing the same thing, that we might detect theirs even if they weren't mean for us.

Early Birds: Possibly... I hope not, but possibly. If we started at X though, it makes sense that others might have started around the same time too, so, possible, but unlikely.

Not Life as we know it: Perhaps, but not the point. Assuming they use energy to communicate, we should be able to detect it.

A long road ahead of us, AND, In a Galaxy Far Far away: Yes to both. To me this is the the strongest reason why. We just started. The distances are also in-fucking-credibly fast that even at the speed of light, signals would take forever to get here.